Endangered Species Law & Policy

On January 31, 2017, President Trump announced Judge Neil M. Gorsuch as his nominee to fill the ninth seat of the United States Supreme Court, left vacant since Justice Antonin Scalia’s passing in February 2016.  Judge Gorsuch currently sits as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.  President George W. Bush nominated Gorsuch to his current Tenth Circuit seat in 2006.  Early in his legal career, Judge Gorsuch clerked for Supreme Court Justices Byron R. White and Anthony M. Kennedy.  Many predict that Gorsuch will follow in the footsteps of the late Justice Scalia; like Justice Scalia before him, Judge Gorsuch favors strict construction of the Constitution and statutes.  Notably, in 2016, Gorsuch wrote a concurring opinion in Gutierrez-Brizuela v. Lynch, criticizing the long-standing Chevron doctrine, which provides for deference to agency regulations where statutes are ambiguous.  While Gutierrez-Brizuela focused on immigration law, the Chevron doctrine has played a significant role in challenges against environmental regulations, such as those associated with the Endangered Species Act.   Should Gorsuch be confirmed and ultimately play a role in upending the Chevron doctrine, it could have a potentially tremendous impact on the regulated community.